Carolyn Williams

Biography

Prof. Williams is well-known in the national legal writing community. The National Conference of Bar Examiners recently appointed Prof. Williams as a subject-matter expert in legal research to help develop the NextGen bar exam, and she served on the North Dakota Supreme Court NextGen Bar Subcommittee. She authored the 7th edition of the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation and published a chapter in A Manual for Law Review Editors. Because of her research and work on critical reading, West Academic invited her to create three interactive modules on critical reading for its Interactive Legal Research & Writing Lessons: A Modular Approach series. Her peers recently elected Prof. Williams as a Director and Treasurer of the Legal Writing Institute, the largest legal writing organization in the world. LWI awarded Prof. Williams the 2024 President's Distinguished Service Award for her work as Treasurer and as Co-Chair of LWI's last two Biennial Conferences. She has been the Chair or a member of the ALWD Guide Task Force for the Association of Legal Writing Directors since 2017. ALWD recently awarded Professor Williams an ALWD Teaching Grant to develop team-based learning materials for her legal writing courses. She is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process and an Assistant Editor for Legal Writing: the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. Prof. Williams focuses her scholarship on critical reading, generative AI, learning disabilities, and andragogy. She was awarded the 2023-24 Randy H. Lee Faculty Teaching Award by UND Law in recognition of outstanding teaching. 

Before joining academia, she spent eight years in big firm practice where she litigated complex commercial cases with an emphasis on land use, development, and financial institutions. Super Lawyers named her a Rising Star in 2016, an honor bestowed on no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in a state. Professor Williams received her J.D. from Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she was Editor in Chief of the Arizona State Law Journal, Chair of the Moot Court Board her 2L and 3L years, and a Teaching Assistant for legal research and writing courses.